With respect, saying "it was a mess before he knew it" portrays the situation as a passive one which TC just sort of fell into - which "happened" to him. It softens his culpability, IMO.
Let's be completely clear: He is a predator. He
groomed the child for several months. Just like any child molester does. He worked on her insecurities and exploited her vulnerabilities. ET is within the demographic of a child at risk for sexual abuse. He knew what he was doing, had either had fantasies he reigned in in the past, never encountered a child as receptive to his advances and as uniquely vulnerable to them as ET, or has abused other children in the past and has not gotten caught.
This predator planned this kidnapping for a long time. His communications with the child illustrate a slick con man who knows exactly what he is doing and why, and has carefully manipulated the child for months, to get her where he wanted her.
Why did he take off? Well, he might very well have planned to simply sexually assault her and convince her to keep it quiet, like many molesters do, while remaining at his job and in his position in his family and community. It happens every day, sadly. But, either he may have realized it was all crashing down and being exposed, so he felt he had to run and greedily wanted to take her with him, or he became so obsessed with the "perfect victim" he found, that he took it to another level.
There is zero way, in my mind, that this predator hasn't acted inappropriately with other kids or online. He just hasn't been caught.
"Youths with histories of sexual or physicalabuse, and other troubled youths, may beparticularly vulnerable... Abused youths are more at risk forsexual victimization and exploitation in a variety of ways(Finkelhor, Ormrod, & Turner, 2007; Raj, Silverman, &Amaro, 2000). Abuse history could be related to emotionalneeds or developmental distortions that make some youthsless able to assess and more responsive to inappropriatesexual advances (Berliner & Elliott, 2002; Rogosch, Cicchetti,& Aber, 1995). Some such youths may be vulnerableto online sexual advances because they are looking forattention and affection (Lanning, 2002). In addition, childhoodtrauma is associated with adolescent risk behavior,including risky sexual behavior (Wolfe et al., 2006). Further,the youths interviewed for the YISS-2 who engaged inhigh-risk interactive behavior had high rates of a variety ofoffline problems, including rule-breaking behavior, depression,and social interaction problems at the clinical orborderline level as measured by the Child Behavior Checklist(Wolak et al., in press). So, the youths most at risk mayexhibit a wide range of problems. For some, prior abusemay trigger risky sexual behavior that directly invites onlinesexual advances. But delinquency, depression, andsocial interaction problems unrelated to abuse also mayincrease vulnerability."
http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-632111.pdf
- Perpetrators report that they look for passive, quiet, troubled, lonely children from single parent or broken homes (Budin & Johnson 1989).
- Perpetrators frequently seek out children who are particularly trusting (Conte et al., 1987) and work proactively to establish a trusting relationship before abusing them (Budin & Johnson, 1989; Conte, Wolfe, & Smith, 1989; Elliott et al., 1995; Warner-Kearney, 1987). Not infrequently, this extends to establishing a trusting relationship with the victim’s family as well (Elliott et al., 1995).
- Family structure is the most important risk factor in child sexual abuse. Children who live with two married biological parents are at low risk for abuse. The risk increases when children live with step-parents or a single parent. Children living without either parent (foster children) are 10 times more likely to be sexually abused than children that live with both biological parents. Children who live with a single parent that has a live-in partner are at the highest risk: they are 20 times more likely to be victims of child sexual abuse than children living with both biological parents (Sedlack, et. al., 2010).
http://www.cachouston.org/child-sexual-abuse-facts/
That's not what the kidnapping statute says though. That might be some political propaganda on the part of the DA but the law does not allow an adult to harbor a runaway. Totally illegal. It's a misdemeanor, but totally illegal.
The question is whether he can be popped for especially aggravated kidnapping which is where they talk about age. It is especially aggravated if the kid is under 13.
Also, as I linked before, federally, he can be charged for taking a minor or person across state lines for the purposes of committing a crime (sexual assault).
I outlined every charge that he may be liable for, on an earlier thread. There is no law that I am aware of in the US that allows an un-related adult, who is not a legal guardian and who does not have the consent of the legal guardian or parents, to take a minor out of the state, whether willingly or not.
She found out later.
